A Sailor's Honour

by Chris Marnewick

  ‘The whole truth and nothing but the truth,’ Weber promised.

  Mazibuko’s car was parked in the visitors’ parking up the street. It was an Aston Martin, a convertible, light blue to match the Aigner shirt, with sand-coloured upholstery matching the khaki coat Mazibuko now casually draped ever the passenger seat. It was as if he had chosen his dress to match the car. Or vice versa. He spoke to Weber from the driver’s seat. ‘Make sure to do a nice job on my car. I’ll be coming to collect it soon.’

  Despite himself, Weber found himself not only trusting, but liking this detail-oriented man. This was the first time Weber felt some hope that his wife would be returned to him safely. He watched the Aston Martin until it rounded the first bend. It was a beautiful car with almost feminine lines, but it didn’t have the throaty roar of a Porsche.

  He returned to his garage and crawled back under his car. The Carrera was already in near perfect condition, and truth be told, there was very little left to do. Liesl frequently told anyone who’d listen that to her husband, a car was not a car but a project and as soon as his beloved little Carrera was in perfect nick with no more work to be done on it, he would tire of it and sell it on, most probably to someone who would never appreciate just how special the car was. Weber had never been able to muster a defence to his wife’s charge. Guilty on all counts.

  He now lay under the car and considered James Mazibuko’s assessment that they were up against men who were extremely well organised and professional. He dared hope that Mazibuko was right and that his wife would be released unharmed. That he was now working on a car that might soon belong to Mazibuko didn’t strike Weber as unusual. But he couldn’t imagine Mazibuko covered in grease up to his elbows, bending over the engine bay or reaching up from below the car to clean something. Nevertheless, he was sure to pay someone to look after it and that person would probably, judging by what Weber had been able to ascertain of Mazibuko’s character, be professional too.

  While Weber’s advocate’s hands were working, his mind was busy. Mazibuko was right: this was personal. Weber and De Villiers had already come to the same conclusion. His hands stopped their work. Could those long-past encounters about a ship be the link? He and De Villiers had made enemies and he wondered where the ship could be now. Not quite big enough to be called a ship, she had started out as a fishing boat, built of steel in Bremerhaven, later registered in Malta.

  The Alicia Mae.

  It all comes down to her, he thought. A ship with a Swedish girl’s name.

  Johannesburg

  Sunday, 21 June 2009 34

  While Pierre de Villiers was in the air on his flight from Auckland, James Mazibuko was in Johannesburg, having dinner with the senior deputy director of the National Prosecuting Authority. He had enticed the man to dinner at the most exclusive restaurant in the business district of the wealthiest suburb in the country with a hint of evidence which could result in a coup for the prosecutor. The NPA had endured some serious criticism for overspending its budget while pursuing a hopeless, politically motivated case against the president. The national director was going to lose his post as soon as they decided on his compensation. The deputy director was in line for the top job. All he needed was a high-profile success.

  Mazibuko had hinted at the right sort of break when he’d phoned. He arranged for his guest to be fetched in the Aston Martin, driven by a white-coated, gloved chauffeur. The wine was a red from Chile and a white from the South Island of New Zealand. There were no prices on the wine list. Their table had its own maître d’ and chef. The two had spent some time explaining what the kitchen could produce for such distinguished guests. The setting, the menu, the attention lavished on the deputy director and the chauffeur-driven car were all reminders that there was now a new elite that revelled in being seen to be rich and powerful.

  ‘So James,’ the deputy director said, talking with his mouth full and his glass in his hand, ‘what you’re saying is that you have information that there is a major underground operation of the right-wing kind being planned, or already in the execution phase, is that right?’

  ‘For sure, AA,’ Mazibuko said, calling the deputy by the initials with which he signed all his decisions to prosecute. ‘It’s running, according to my source, and we expect some overt action in the next week.’

  ‘Your source thinks they are holed up somewhere in the northeastern parts?’

  ‘Yes, my informant couldn’t be more precise. Or he wouldn’t be. You know how it is with informants. They always hold something back for another payday.’ Mazibuko shrugged his shoulders. ‘I know he’s going to come to me with the exact location in the next day or two – his money never lasts beyond the next day at the races. Then I’ll let you know what I’ve got.’

  ‘And in the meantime you want to know if we have anyone under surveillance in that part of the world, so that you don’t step on our toes or perhaps ruin our operation by getting involved, unwittingly, so to speak?’

  ‘That is well put, AA. Precisely. We don’t want to take the risk that we might mess up one of your important operations,’ Mazibuko said. He put a tentative line in the water. ‘We have to find a way to work together for our mutual benefit.’

  ‘But James, what’s in it for me?’ the deputy director asked. ‘At my age, and with my position so precarious, one has to think of the days one might have to spend in early retirement.’

  Mazibuko allowed himself a little smile. The conversation was drifting in the right direction. ‘It depends, my dear friend, on the quality and veracity of any information you might feel inclined to pass my way,’ he said.

  The fish was hooked. ‘Try me, James. Be a little more specific. You have been, if I may say so, rather slow in coming forward with any real information that I could use, or any hint at what you are planning to do with the information you want me to divulge.’

  ‘You remember that lawyer in Durban whose wife was abducted?’ He waited for his guest to nod. ‘I’ve been given a brief to find her. If I were to find her and return her to him – unscathed, mind you – and if I were to do that, say, with helpful information emanating from your good self, there might be more than the usual political advantages for you arising from the success of the operation. Which, of course, we could dress up as if it had been your idea from the beginning.’

  ‘Give me a name, James, and tell me about the non-political advantages there could be in it for me. Be more specific, man! You are so cagey.’

  Mazibuko leaned forward and dropped his voice so that the deputy director had to lean forward to hear. ‘I think, AA, that it could be arranged for the keys to the Aston Martin in which you drove here to be found in your Christmas stocking with the registration papers in the cubbyhole.’

  ‘Ah, James,’ the deputy director said, straightening up. ‘Now you’ve got me interested. The quality of the quid pro quo speaks volumes for the value of the information you seek.’

  This was getting tiresome and Mazibuko was not a man for prevarication. Careful, yes. Indecisive, no. ‘I want to know only whether you have a current operation involving a right-wing underground movement somewhere in Mpumalanga, and if you have it, its general locality.’

  The deputy director lifted the fork to his mouth. ‘This lamb is exquisite.’

  ‘Involving soldiers of the old order,’ Mazibuko said.

  The deputy director almost choked. Mazibuko watched him controlling his reaction with great effort. He tapped his water glass. A waiter appeared, refilled it, then disappeared again into the shadows.

  ‘You’re talking big fish here, James. Really big fish. Although we don’t know their names.’

  ‘How big?’ Mazibuko asked.

  ‘Shark size. Great white shark size. Men who somehow managed to bridge the transition from the old to the new order.’

  ‘Worthy of an Aston Martin, do you think?’ Mazibuko enquired.

  The deputy director nodded slowly. ‘I think so, but you didn’t hear it from me.’

/>   ‘Where?’ Mazibuko asked.

  ‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ the deputy director said. ‘Let me think about it.’

  James Mazibuko’s wineglasses – both the red and the white – were still untouched. He now took an exploratory sip of the white and put the glass down again. He wondered if the deputy director was making a phone call from the bathroom. And if so, to whom. But it didn’t matter either way. He would rely on his own sources if he had to. That might take longer, but in the end he’d find her. Although he should have no interest in the outcome beyond the financial, he was intrigued by the fact that whoever was behind it could execute two abductions ten thousand kilometres apart with such precision. As a general orchestrating similar strikes, he had to admire their professionalism. They lay down a keen challenge here. Could he beat them at their own game?

  ‘I think we can talk business,’ the deputy director said when he returned. ‘I can’t be too specific, because we have a man on the inside and we are keeping them under observation from the air force base nearby.’

  ‘Air force, AA?’ Mazibuko said. ‘Surely they will hear you coming from miles away? They’d see you before you see them.’

  ‘No,’ the deputy director said. ‘They are in a game lodge – the owner is one of them – on the banks of the Great Letaba River. We monitor them from the Hoedspruit air force base. The lodge is on a farm adjoining the Kruger National Park and the air force regularly scouts for poachers for the National Parks people. They fly every day.’

  ‘But won’t they get suspicious?’

  The deputy director laughed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Amusingly, the lodge’s owner asked the air force to check his land for poachers too. They make a special effort to buzz him when they do their rounds.’

  ‘Has there been any suspicious activity at the lodge recently?’

  ‘Some strange comings and goings. When we checked the registration numbers on the cars, we found that the owners were mostly engineers. Construction people, a retired mining engineer and a surveyor. When we checked them out from the air, it appeared that they were having a braai and watching the rugby on a huge flatscreen television with the other guests.’

  ‘What do you make of that?’ Mazibuko asked.

  ‘They’re obviously planning something, but we don’t know what. There are some foot soldiers being trained for something, you know, the usual thing. Army drills and shooting and so on. Their cover for that is that they have to train their game rangers to deal with poachers.’

  ‘But you know better.’

  ‘For sure. We think they are planning something big.’

  ‘And you won’t tell,’ Mazibuko said. ‘Interesting.’ Mazibuko looked at his watch. ‘You’ve got a man inside,’ he ventured, watching the deputy director closely. ‘But you don’t know their names.’

  ‘Well, not quite inside. It’s the head cook. He reports what he can, but he’s not in a position to monitor what goes on around those fires.’

  ‘Do they take black guests?’ Mazibuko asked, a plan forming in his mind.

  The deputy director laughed aloud. The other guests, even those at the most distant tables, turned to look. He giggled through the explanation. ‘Funny you should ask. They consistently declined to make a reservation for the acting national director, and he then threatened to take them to the Equality Court. Now they take a token black from time to time, preferably a black family.’

  ‘I think I should test their hospitality,’ Mazibuko said. ‘Do you have a phone number for me?’

  ‘About that Aston Martin,’ the deputy director said.

  ‘The number first,’ Mazibuko said.

  Monday, 22 June 2009 35

  The trip from Auckland to Durban took thirty-six hours, but due to the time zone gain, Pierre de Villiers arrived in Durban the same day. He had left his Macleans Road home at 4 a.m. to catch the first flight to Sydney and had arrived at Johann Weber’s home in The Gardens in time for dinner.

  Johann Weber’s study was a good place for plotting. It was here that Weber prepared for his bigger cases, where he analysed the facts to create a persuasive theory of the case and planned his cross-examination and closing argument. But in this case, he had been unable to come up with a theory that made sense, let alone a convincing guess. His wife had been abducted, and so had De Villiers’s daughter. There had to be a link and a reason, but Weber had been unable to find any.

  When De Villiers had had a shower and had put on some fresh clothes, the two men sat down in the study and reviewed the situation. ‘I’ve set up a meeting at my chambers at eleven tomorrow,’ Weber said. ‘The general and the major will be there. They insisted that there should be no one else.’

  ‘What do they want from us?’ De Villiers asked. ‘What could they possibly want from us after all these years?’ It was, after all, some seventeen years since his last encounter with them.

  ‘They were looking for you here last year, remember,’ Weber said. ‘We had to change your flight to get you out of the country before they could reach you. I later learned that they were waiting for you at the airport, but you had already flown out. They even claimed to have a warrant for your arrest, but I wouldn’t place too much store on that. A few days later they came back here to threaten Liesl with obstructing the course of justice, but backed off when I asked them what investigation or judicial process they were pursuing and what agency they represented.’

  ‘I’ve always suspected,’ said De Villiers, ‘that they are not but that they have some backing from people high up in the military.’

  Weber shifted in his chair. ‘We’re also seeing a man called James Mazibuko before we meet the other two.’

  ‘Who’s James Mazibuko?’

  ‘He’s going to help me find Liesl,’ Weber said. When he saw the expression on De Villiers’s face, he tried to explain, but it just didn’t make sense to De Villiers, and he said so.

  ‘It makes sense to me,’ Weber argued. ‘These people are using unconventional means. The only way to counter them is for the two of us to use unconventional means. They will never expect that from me, and I don’t think they expect it from you.’

  ‘I don’t like this,’ De Villiers said.

  ‘Pierre, think of it like this: they have used illegal means, a criminal act punishable by many years imprisonment, a Schedule 6 offence for which they don’t even grant bail, and we have to try and counter that by lawful means? It’s an uneven contest.’

  De Villiers shook his head. ‘That’s not what worries me. What worries me is your involvement in trying to deal with them through this man, what’s-his-name, Mazibuko. This calls for trained operators, soldiers and policemen, and I am both. Why don’t you stay out of it and let me handle it?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to let you do this all on your own. This time it’s different. They’ve taken my wife, like they’ve taken your daughter. We are equally entitled to do what we think is necessary and justified to get them back. I am not going to sit back and leave this in the hands of others. I’m going to find their viper’s nest and I’m going to destroy them, whether by legal or illegal means. And that’s final. We are seeing James Mazibuko tomorrow.’

  ‘You’d better tell me about this James Mazibuko, then,’ De Villiers said.

  De Villiers couldn’t sleep. The knowledge that he was soon to see the general and the major spooked him. He tossed and turned in the unfamiliar bed, and as he did so, different chapters of his past drifted slowly across his dreams.

  He dreamed of a man in the sights of a long rifle and a flight through the Kalahari with no food or water. There was a bushman, who spoke to him in broken Afrikaans and called himself !Xau. There was an army truck, and a severe beating, and then !Xau disappeared. There were more beatings and then a hospital. The smell woke De Villiers. He sat up and thought about it. The general and the major had sent the men who had chased him and !Xau through southern Angola. He would meet the general and the major again in less than twelve hours. He
turned over to sleep, but they kept chasing him. There was a boat somewhere, but it was in the Kalahari. It didn’t make sense, a boat among the mopane trees. An albino chased him in a Pretoria street with an AK-47 in his hands. He heard the gunshots and smelled the cordite, they were so close. He tasted the blood. He was back in hospital. They had tied him to the bed. He couldn’t move, no matter how hard he struggled. The albino said the general was coming after him.

  When he woke up, he found that he had bitten his tongue. There was blood on the pillow.

  He looked at himself in the mirror. His beard was scraggly. His eyes were bloodshot. The crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes were deeper than when he had last looked at himself.

  He held his right hand up, palm down, fingers extended. His hand was shaking.

  Phalaborwa

  Monday, 22 June & Tuesday, 23 June 2009 36

  Mazibuko rang the number and pretended that he was a Zimbabwean cricket commentator working for the BBC. Two lies out of three was about his average.

  ‘What sort of accommodation do you have in mind?’ the receptionist asked. It was late and she sounded sleepy.

  ‘The most expensive you’ve got,’ he said. ‘For two days and nights … No, make it three, starting tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘That would be the bridal suite, and it just so happens that it is available. We don’t have many weddings during the week.’

  ‘Superb. My wife will be ecstatic.’ Another lie. He’d be bringing an escort on the escapade.

  ‘And it’s for Mr and Mrs?’

  ‘Mazibuko. Mr James and Mrs Cindy.’

  Mazibuko was unable to find a suitable escort on short notice, so Cindy turned out to be Natasha, a Bulgarian pole dancer from Teazers. Mazibuko told her to name her price for three days, no sex involved. She immediately doubled her daily rate, thinking that if there was to be no sex involved, there must be something weird and possibly dangerous. She was right in both respects. Mazibuko knew that he was being taken, but accepted nevertheless. He paid cash, up front, and offered a bonus if she performed as asked. What the heck, he had a suitcase full where that came from.